Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- Preheat your oven to 425°F.
- Lightly flour a clean work surface and unroll the softened pie crusts. Sprinkle both crusts evenly with the turbinado sugar and ground cinnamon.1 box refrigerated pie crusts, 3 tablespoons turbinado sugar, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Gently roll a rolling pin over the top of the pie crusts to press the sugar and cinnamon firmly into the dough.
- Using a 2.5-inch round cookie or biscuit cutter, cut out pastry rounds. You may need to gently re-roll the scraps to get a total of 48 circles.
- Gently press each pastry round into the cups of an ungreased mini muffin pan.
- Bake the crusts for 10 minutes, or until they are golden brown. Allow the cannoli cups to cool in the pans for about 15 minutes before moving them to a wire rack to cool completely.
- While the shells are cooling, prepare the filling. In a large mixing bowl, beat the drained ricotta, powdered sugar, granulated sugar, citrus zest, and vanilla extract with an electric mixer on medium speed until creamy.1 container (15 oz) whole-milk ricotta cheese, 1/2 cup powdered sugar, 2 tablespoons granulated sugar, 1 teaspoon orange or lemon zest, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Transfer the filling into a 1-gallon zip-top resealable bag. Seal the bag and refrigerate until you are ready to serve.
- Just before serving, snip one corner off the bag and pipe approximately 1 tablespoon of filling into each cooled pastry cup.
- Sprinkle the cups with mini chocolate chips or chopped pistachios and finish with a light dust of powdered sugar. Serve immediately.1/4 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips, Additional powdered sugar
Notes
The most important step for a perfect cannoli filling is to strain the ricotta in a fine-mesh sieve or cheesecloth-lined colander for several hours or overnight. This ensures your filling is thick and creamy rather than watery.
